Recently I was contacted by a potential client, but as I did my usual research on him, he turned out to be a rather active scammer. Seeing how a number of our fellow artists have already fallen for his scam, I felt the need to pass the info along to you all.

After so many years doing commissions, I am still very shocked every time I hear of artists who get scammed like this. Identifying and/or avoiding scammers is not impossible, so instead of ranting, I decided to write up a few things I've learned over time and I want to share them with you.Hopefully this will be useful to some of you guys and prevent people from falling into any traps! XU

1. Always clear up these issues before accepting any work: What it is you will be drawing, and how much it is, when you'll be paid, the time frame in which you are going to complete it, how many edits you will allow per piece, and what the art is used for.

2. If someone seems fishy, google them. (Personally, I google every person who contacts me, just to be sure.) If their name doesn't come up with anything, google their e-mail address or the studio/company they claim to work for. Scammers sometimes use aliases and change e-mail addresses, but if they've been exposed before, it's likely the one they used for you is listed somewhere.

3. Always aim to get paid in full, in advance. If this is not possible, ask for a physical contract (real name, real address), and get paid 50% up front, 50% upon completion. If the client seems uninterested in finding common ground with you, there's reason to be cautious. When in doubt, refuse. [Edit: another fairly safe suggestion: divide work into steps and get each step paid! sketch/inks/colour]

4. Always watermark and only show low resolution images if you haven't been paid in full yet. The watermark should be prominent and hard to remove until you've received your full payment.

5. Exposure is not a form of payment. No exceptions.

Warning signs:♦ When someone doesn't answer your questions straight. Especially concerning payment.♦ When people come up with excuses as to why you should send them the high res version early. (for example: "my team is on a deadline, we need it now, I'll pay you next week". It is not your problem.)♦ When people ignore the original agreement. This can be sudden changes in deadlines, sudden demands for more changes etc. Stick to your guns and give only what they paid for. If they ask for more, inform them on how much more that'll cost them.♦ Wanting free samples. If you are on DA, chances are that you have art in your gallery. Some people will demand 'test sketches' to see you can do it, and run off with those. Your gallery should have enough examples of what you are capable of. (make sure you have a well kept gallery)

[Edit]Tips for clients, who are afraid of being ripped off by artists who don't deliver:◘Check an artist's reputation concerning commissions. Best commission people who are known to deliver.◘Check if the artist has finished commissions in their gallery. ◘Contact former clients and have a chat with them.◘ start with a small commission, see how well it goes before asking for big expensive ones.

So keep an eye out my fellow creatives, be safe! ; 3; ♥Wish you all wonderful Holidays, lots of warmth, good food and love.

I'm sorry that people like this exist.I do advise any artist, for when they are doind a commision, the payment for it to be made by the commissioner to the mailman. At least in my country it's possible to do this and both parties are treated equally

bah... yeah. I had a co-worker do something similar when I first started freelancing. I was naive to think that being face-to face would make a difference, but in the end, he just ran off with it and I lost contact.

You would be surprised at the people who scam you sometimes too. I got scammed by a former co-worker (she basically said she was starting a compony. Got me to do commission sketches and then vanished when she moved to LA and never paid me for my time )

Wow! Thanks for the information. It's sad to see it happening. But hopefully by spreading word and letting others know how harmful this behavior is, maybe it will diminish more quickly. Good job on keeping a keen eye out!

At least, he will see that he can't continue this way on Deviantart...I just don't see why people waste so much time on this kind of behaviour ! he should have used this time to practice... such a dumb fuck.

yep that's true...Someone ok chasing this guy and breaking his both hands ?... Maybe it would help him think about how bad and pathetic is to steal other people's work. *sigh* But violence isn't the answer, yeah...

It does, it will put be me in the right direction , thank you. I'll look into that at the library I work for, I can request it through the book exchange program we do. There are a couple of books that I need to go over so I think they would help as well. I never knew that about the 200-400% for selling copyrights; I have tried looking that up before because I'm currently working on a piece for a book, and didn't know how much to consider if I sold it to the publisher. Thank you for all the advice, its hard to get sometimes so seriously thank you.

I see. Copyright is something pretty complicated at times, so it's very understandable. There's a few books out there that probably help with this sort of thing though, if you really want to know your stuff! (I have a few in German, but I also bought one in America a while ago. it's called Legal Guide for the visual Artist. [link] I haven't read it entirely, but I have to say it's been rather helpful so far.

When it comes to copyright and full exclusive rights, those are things you don't lose unless you have a written contract with someone and give them (be careful with this!) away or sell them. The price for all exclusive rights usually are around +200-400% to the base price.

For the money commissions I do in person, we just do word of mouth agreements. This has gone well so far but I feel unprofessional when I do that. I've seen template contracts here and there and I've thought about using those as a starter but I'm just hesitant all-around about it. My main worry about it is ensuring the safety of my copyright and what the client intends to do with the image afterward, even if I asked prior before accepting it. I guess its one of those things I would have to take a chance on to get a better at it. Thank you for the advice. I'll definitively use ideas from your journal here when I make mine.

I see. I am sorry if I offended you. Not the intention, just merely confused. I am a German/English speaker, so things get lost in translation and I was worried I was missing the point with your art. I didn't want to sound like an idiot when I warned my friends.

hm, to be honest my contracts change drastically depending on the client and type of work. Usually it's the client that sends me a contract, and I adjust it accordingly though. For everything else, I have a few standard ones that I tweak over time. for private commissions on DA, I usually don't use any (unless I am highly suspicious of an inidividual), because I simply refuse to work without up front pay, and the copyright is mine by default.

Ah, well looks like I didn't look at the year, so that's my bad. But either way, chris anyma has a personal website, contact e-mail, facebook page, portfolios online making it easy to trace the work back to him, while cayman hasn't.

Unless I get proof that this is not the case, I will keep the info on the matter in this journal as it is.

thank you so much dear friend, i just wanted to add that i am not a fool or inexperienced guy like that, we agreed to an upfront payment but since i was free i started right away painting and thought well whatever, if he doesnt pay i will surely use this piece in my portfolio, my error was sending him a wip that confirms and assures him i was taking the job seriously as i do always and show him i already started so he could trust to pay me, i never imagined he could even steal a damn screencapture that he then proceeded to polish up and even used as his desktop picture, to whom want to see i will post the original screenshot on my page, thank you!

VERY IMPORTANT.Hi guys I m Eidenet, a digital artist since some years. I worked with many companies and tons of people here on DA, on FB, or eherever u will see can confirm I am a fair person. I know chris-anyma from long time, I followed a good amount of his path. I even saw the costruction and painting of this wip, wich Cayman stoled in a horrible way.Since CHris accepted the painting as commission, he sended an update to Cayman, and Cayman posted it as if it was his own picture. Of course when Cris saw that even if he posted the picture, Cayman's post was from early days.But this doesn't mean nothing. Chris has the PSD of the image with all the layers ( he can post whenever needed if people doesnt believe him,) and if u see your gallery you will notice that this painting is exactly his style, and a wip, since Chris pic's are always very cool ( check hands, the picture is clearly a wip)SO I doubt Cayman has A layerized PSD of the painting, where we can see how he made it from the first sketches to the last layers. And Cayman has not a gallery like Chria gallery, with tons of amazing PRO pics in the exact same style of this one.

Personally I saw chris-anyma doing the picture, since he even asked feedbacks on it to me before sending to the client (Cayman) wich didn't payed and stoled the image. He even posted that immediately, so he could say he posted the pic sooner than Chris. A very poor argument since any artists knows that u need a PSD to prove the image is yours, with some layers and making of too, possibly. ANd CHris gallery speaks itself about this diatriba.Cayman stole the painting, makes multiple accounts and stoled other painting from other artists too, in the past.Now since I luckly got a couple of Daily DEviations, I am in contact with some Deviant Administrators, and I hope I will be able to make this problems end. at least here.I am very sorry for people like Cayman, coz if you are at the point to steal other artists' s works and do all this noise to try legittimating your version, it means you have serious porblems.My advice: go back studyng art fundamentals and come back with your own paintings. Even if not good as Chris-Anyma s stuff, it will be always better than stealing.TOday I will write on my journal ( wich luckly is followed by some fellow PRo artists about this, cause we artists have to protect ourselves and our efforts in art, in a world like this, when there is people like Cayman90053. Im confident very soon DA will catch his IP or whatever trick he will try to mask his IP and ban him forever. WE must defend and help together against this kind of persons...I hope one day they will grow up and apologize. Is never too late to start painting..but stealing art from fair and honest persons like CHris ( his error is beeen to trust Cayman and dont ask an upfront payment when he started doing the wip, but Chris has all the e-mails, so he can easily suit Cayman if he wants to--fact is we think is probably a young child who hasnt still realized how he is hurting ther people wich works hard everyday for their passion)So I can confirm, havin provided Chris of feedbacks during the painting, and told him to be careful in accepting a non upfront payed commission, that Cayman is a SCAMMER and STOLED chris-anyma artwork.PS sorry for my bad english

btw last thing he threated me not to post my art, i have almost finished it changing some design, so he has no arguments there, he claims he has the copyrights AND IS NOT POSSIBLE!!! don't let him fool you!!whoever is intersted to this issue i can show you all the emails that we exchanged